Sinha: Double woe

Hazaribagh, April 18: “It’s a one-horse race,” claims film-maker Pahlaj Nihalani, who is camping here and campaigning for external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha.

More hardened politicians in the Sinha camp, however, acknowledge that it’s “tough going” with a determined Opposition backing the CPI candidate, Bhuvaneswar Prasad Mehta, and effectively sealing the possibility of splitting Opposition votes. It would still have been smooth sailing for Sinha, one suspects, but for rebellion in his ranks which is forcing him to sweat it out.

One of the two rebels is a professor of political science. The other is a retired teacher of mathematics and a former MP. The former, K.P. Sharma, is credited with building up the BJP from scratch in Hazaribagh and his associates blame the external affairs minister for denying him a Rajya Sabha berth. The latter, Mahavir Lal Vishwakarma, had won a seat in the Lok Sabha from Hazaribagh in 1996 but blames Sinha for denying him a “logical renomination” in 1998, when Sinha contested.

Both Sharma and Vishwakarma were expelled from the party last month for “anti-party activities”. Two days later, Vishwakarma filed his nomination as an Independent. A week later, Sharma, who is said to have a firm grip on the party organisation, stormed the “old and original” BJP office and took it over, converting it into the central election office of Vishwakarma.

The professor does not hide his bitterness for the high-profile foreign minister. “He is a two-faced snake, has a split personality and practises double standards,” Sharma hisses in one breath.

He blames Sinha for marginalising him in the BJP. “Both Vishwakarmaji and I were expelled from the party even before the latter filed his nomination — merely because we had urged the central leaders to change the official BJP candidate. But look at Sinha’s double standards. Dhirendra Agarwal, an old BJP stalwart, is actually contesting from Chatra as a Rashtriya Janata Dal candidate, but he is yet to be expelled,” he says.

BJP insiders also seem to believe that Sinha acted in haste in getting the two RSS veterans in the district expelled. “They should have been given some time to explain their conduct,” said a sober voice within the party.

Vishwakarma himself, the leader believed, posed no threat as a rebel candidate. He neither has the money nor the muscle to disturb Sinha. But while Sinha’s campaign managers are sure that the rebel would not poll too many votes, they remain uneasy at the possibility of a section of the party working against Sinha on polling day.

Sharma also concedes that the rebels have a problem or two. “Our symbol, coconut, is unfamiliar and we do not have the resources to communicate it to the electorate; and that is our biggest problem,” he declares.

To be fair to the foreign minister, he appears to have made a sincere attempt to nurse the constituency. Even his detractors concede that he is the first MP to have “done some work” for the constituency. Contracts have of course been bagged by people close to Sinha in the ruling party and there are many long faces and sour grapes over the half-a-dozen people here turning into millionaires during the past five years, all belonging to Sinha’s own caste.